As is known, in the liberalized energy market energy supply contracts can be stipulated, for example managed by market operators, which define a quantity of energy supplied within determined time intervals, for example on an hourly basis.
However, it can occur that owing to various phenomena, such as particular scheduling the electric loads or manual actuations of the users or other, the total system of loads can be brought as a consequence to absorb a greater or lesser quantity of energy with respect to the energy forecast and allocated by the market operator.
In both cases the maximum or minimum thresholds of the energy allocation might be exceeded; when this happens there is a positive imbalance with an excess of consumption or a negative imbalance with an excessively low consumption with respect to the ordered allocation, which leads to increases in price for the energy and/or significant penalties.